"Of the 100 sample cases we reviewed, SSA appropriately took action to suspend DI benefit payments for 75 beneficiaries who had periods of conviction and incarceration, but overpaid DI benefits to the remaining 25 sample beneficiaries," said the report. "Based on this sample, we estimate SSA overpaid about $1 million to 440 beneficiaries.”

Combined, this means SSA overpaid an estimated $1,022,000 to the 440 people in question.

In an e-mail to CNSNews.com, SSA Public Affairs Specialist Andrew M. Cannarsa explained that given the way the investigation and calculations were done, "we are 90% confident that the true amount of our findings ranges somewhere in between $209,811 (statistical lower limit) and $1,547,491 (statistical upper limit)."

The average of those two estimates is $878,651, or about $879,000--the "statistical point estimate, which means it's the quantity that we project we would find in a given population based on our sample findings," said Cannarsa.

(AP Photo)

The SSA public affairs office told CNSNews.com the improper payments were made because the federal database on incarceration--Prisoner Update Processing System (PUPS)--"was not always accurate."

Before the SSA suspends benefits, said Cannarsa, "it contacts officials in the Departments of Corrections, county, and/or local jails to verify beneficiaries' conviction and confinement periods; but staff did not make these contacts for the SDW beneficiaries that were the focus of the audit report."

Cannarsa further explained that there is no need for SSA to put in place more procedures to ensure improper payments do not re-occur "because these improper payments were only made to individuals [who] became eligible for Title II benefits before January 1, 2000."

Now, "SSA's systems generate an alert for SSI recipients who became eligible or will become eligible for Title II benefits after that date [Jan. 1, 2000]," said Cannarsa in an e-mail. "Because this specific type of overpayment will not re-occur, we did not recommend that SSA put into place any additional procedures."